702 
APPENDIX. 
science of modern horticulture is so deeply indebted — as, how- 
ever common it is to see the apparent local decline of certain 
sorts of fruit, yet it is a familiar fact that many sorts have also 
been continued a far greater length of time than the life of any 
one parent tree. Still the doctrine has found supporters abroad, 
and at least one hearty advocate in this country. 
Mr. Kenrick, in his new American Orchardist, adopts this 
doctrine, and in speaking of Pears, says : “ I shall, in the fol- 
lowing pages, designate some of these in the class of old varie- 
ties, once the finest of all old pears, whose duration we had 
hoped, but in vain, to perpetuate. For, except in certain sec- 
tions of the city, and some very few and highly favoured situa- 
tions in the country around, they (the old sorts) have become 
either so uncertain in their bearing — so barren — so unproduc- 
tive — or so miserably blighted — so mortally diseased — that they 
are no longer to be trusted ; they are no longer what they once 
were with us, and what many of them are still described to be 
by most foreign writers.” 
Mr. Kenrick accordingly arranges in separate classes the Old 
and New Pears ; and while he praises the latter, he can hardly 
find epithets sufficiently severe to bestow on the former poor 
unfortunates. Of the Doyenne he says : u This most eminent 
of all Pears has now become an outcast, intolerable even to 
sight ;” of the Brown Beurre, “ once the best of all Pears — 
now become an outcast.” The St. Germain “ has long since 
become an abandoned variety,” Ac., Ac. 
Many persons have, therefore, supposing that these delicious 
varieties had really and quietly given up the ghost, made no 
more inquiries after them, and only ordered from the nurseries 
the new varieties. And this, not always, as they have confessed 
to us, without some lingering feeling of regret at thus abandon- 
ing old and tried friends for new comers — which, it must be 
added, not unfrequently failed to equal the good qualities of their 
predecessors. 
But, while this doctrine of Knight’s has found ready sup- 
porters, we are bound to add that it has also met with sturdy 
opposition. At the head of the opposite party we may rank 
the most distinguished vegetable physiologist of the age, Pro- 
fessor De Candolle, of Geneva. Varieties, says De Candolle, 
will endure and remain permanent, so long as man chooses to 
take care of them, as is evident from the continued existence, 
to this day, of sorts, the most ancient of those which have been 
described in books. By negligence, or through successive bad 
seasons, they may become diseased, but careful culture will 
restore them, and retain them, to all appearance, for ever. 
Our own opinion coincides, in the main, with that of Dq 
C andolle. While we admit that, in the common mode of pro- 
pagation, varieties are constantly liable to decay or become 
